Chapter 337 Soviet-Finnish War (6)

When Anatoly, the commander of the SB-2 bomber group, saw the ten fighters appearing in front of him, he was stunned.

Vision is the most critical and important basic condition for becoming a pilot. Although the vision requirements for pilots have been slightly lowered with the popularization of radar technology and optoelectronic sensors in later generations, and some countries only require pilots to have vision of about 0; but now is the era of piston aircraft. In addition to ground guidance, the search for enemy aircraft in the air mainly depends on vision. The better the vision, the earlier the target can be found, and the enemy can enter the combat state before the enemy, which has a considerable advantage.

Therefore, those who can fight in the sky in this era have a pair of sharp eyes. Although the distance is still far, Anatoly has already recognized that those oncoming fighters are definitely not Finnish Fokker fighters.

Because the confidentiality work was done very well, and the Soviets were arrogant, they did not realize that external forces had secretly intervened in the war between them.

To what extent was the Soviet Union arrogant?

Stalin believed that with the overwhelming advantage of the Soviet army, Finland's resistance would not last more than a week. He even issued a handwritten order to the Soviet army before the war, asking the Soviet army not to run too far to avoid entering Swedish territory.

This optimistic mood spread among the Soviet high-level officials, and some even said: "As long as we raise our voices a little, the Finns will obey. If it doesn't work, we can fire a shot, and the Finns will raise their hands and surrender. That's what we think."

Lacking effective reconnaissance, the Soviets did not know that the strength of Finland's air force had at least doubled at this time.

After a few seconds, Anatoly's face became even more strange. Why do those fighters look so much like their own LaG-3 fighters that have not yet been mass-produced? !

Just when his mind was a little confused and he hadn't recovered yet, the distance between the two sides was getting closer and closer. He could even see the bright red five-pointed stars on the fuselages of those fighters. They were all Soviet fighters.

"Are they really our fighters?" But I haven't heard that there were LaG-3 fighters participating in this operation? Could it be that the superiors secretly sent friendly forces to perform some special mission?

Just when Anatoly was a little confused and was wondering whether to contact the rear to confirm, suddenly the ten fighters swooped down and roared towards the bomber group.

The weapons equipped by the LaG-3 fighter are two 7mm machine guns and a 20mm cannon. Such powerful firepower is difficult for even heavy bombers with thick skin and flesh to withstand, let alone light bombers like SB-2.

The SB-2 bomber group was caught off guard and ten bombers were shot down in the blink of an eye.

"Damn, what is going on?!" Anatoly yelled in shock and anger, but no matter what happened, it was obvious that the other party was an enemy! "Machine gunners, fire! Fire! Shoot down all these bastards!!"

Bombers are heavy and fly slowly. It can be said that they are the best targets in the sky, and the losses of the bomber unit throughout World War II were considerable.

However, as crew members of the bomber, they had no choice but to carry out the mission. If they gave up because of the danger, then their companions would have to continue bombing at the risk of danger.

This is their mission.

On the back turret, Yevgeny operated his 62mm twin defense machine gun and shouted. "I can't believe it! Leonid, did you see it?! There are five-pointed stars on the fuselage of those fighters! Did they make a mistake?!"

Leonid had just seen a bomber in front of him being shot down, and he was sweating nervously and yelled! "Who cares, fire! Fire! Fire!"

The SB-2 bomber has only four self-defense machine guns, with the machine gunner and navigator each responsible for two. This is far from enough. You must know that the later Sky Fortress B-2 machine gun has hedgehog-like self-defense firepower, but it is still often shot down by enemy fighters.

The best way to protect bombers is always escort fighters!

Frank, who had leveled off after climbing, looked at the tracer bullets flying all over the sky below and whistled disdainfully. The seemingly dense firepower was full of flaws in his eyes.

"Dive!"

Ten fighters dived down again and rushed towards the bomber group fiercely.

Yevgeni saw a fighter dive towards them from high in the sky, and his hand tightly held the trigger of the 62mm twin machine gun!

There are many things to pay attention to when shooting in the air. Simple mechanical sights must take into account many other factors, such as wind speed, gravity, etc. Even in later times, before the appearance of machine gun hot lines, machine gun shooting in the air is a technical job.

It looks very powerful, but in fact, the bullet is still far away from the opponent.

The opponent opened fire!

"Boom boom boom!" The 20mm machine gun instantly smashed the wing of an SB-2 bomber into pieces.

Yevgeni watched in horror as a friendly plane behind him rolled and fell to the ground.

Anatoly was going crazy. In just a short moment, they had lost nearly 20 bombers. But he didn't dare to retreat like this. He would face the investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as soon as he landed. He had to at least insist on flying over the target and dropping the bombs.

Now all he could do was desperately ask for support on the radio.

It was not until they lost more than 20 bombers that 20 I-153s and 30 I-16s finally arrived.

After the Spanish War, the Soviet high-level officials received a watered-down report on the loss ratio, mistakenly believing that biplane fighters with better performance would still play an important role in future wars.

Therefore, the I-153 fighter was further developed based on the I-15 fighter. The I-153 is equipped with a Shvetsov M62R engine (1,000 horsepower), and the landing gear can be retracted. According to the test results of the Soviet Central Institute of Fluid Mechanics, the wing was changed back to a gull-shaped layout, and the performance of the aircraft was greatly improved. The maximum speed is 442 kilometers per hour and the ceiling is 9,800 meters. Although there is not much change in the top speed, the high-altitude performance has been significantly improved.

It was just that the original design bureau estimated that the maximum speed could be increased to 462 kilometers per hour, but during the test, it was found that the aircraft design had serious structural problems. If the dive speed exceeded 500 kilometers per hour, the fuselage would disintegrate, so the speed increase was forced to stop; although the gull-shaped wing can theoretically improve the performance of the aircraft, the driver's field of vision is blocked by the main wing.

Although the design bureau proposed an improvement plan, the I-153 had already been put into mass production at that time. The Soviet government rejected all future improvement plans on the grounds that modifying the design would delay mass production. For the Soviet government, the I-153 was just a stepping-stone model before the new fighter was put into service, so production was more important than improvement.

The I-16 was also upgraded and improved. At this time, it was already the 24th model, equipped with a 1100HP M-63 engine and a speed of 470KM/H. However, no matter how it was improved, the I-16 always had the disadvantage of being difficult to control. It was easy to fall into a spiral when it jumped sharply, and compared with the BF-109F, the I-16/24 model was obviously behind.